


i hope this song will guide you

by engmaresh



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Moving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-07 10:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11057076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/engmaresh
Summary: Benny makes his way out west to California.





	i hope this song will guide you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kissoffools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/gifts).



There’s a row of phone booths just outside the entrance to the library, and that’s where Nina Rosario can be found most Friday evenings after seven. It usually takes three to four dial tones before Benny picks up, and when he does, he’s almost always breathless. “Shower,” he says one time, and she can see it, Benny, towel clutched around his waist with one hand, phone in the other, dripping all over the floor. Sometimes he's eating dinner, and she gets to hear him chew frantically before he manages a hello.

“I could wait a little, call you later,” she suggests after the first few times. 

“Nah,” he says, and she can hear the grin in his voice. “You keep me on my toes. I like it.”

“Usnavi doesn’t mind?”

“He’s still down at the store.” 

Sometimes Usnavi isn’t down at the store though, and she hears him in the background, hollering at Benny for dripping on the linoleum or letting dinner burn. Nina laughs then, and tells Benny to give Usnavi her love, and to tell Usnavi to give her love to Sonny and Vanessa.

Today though, Benny picks up on the first ring and something changes.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says back, almost shyly. It’s hard to tell over the phone.

“You’re quick today,” she teases.

“Been waiting.”

Something twinges in her chest. Her father! “Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Benny’s quick to reassure her, likely hearing the worry in her voice. “Everyone’s fine. Your parents are well. Usnavi and Vanessa are still together. And Sonny’s doing great, as are the girls in the salon.”

“That’s good,” she says with a smile, and settles back in the booth, propping her chin on the stack of books piled in her lap. “So what are you waiting for.”

There’s a pause, then Benny says, “I’m coming to you.”

Nina’s elbow slips off the books, knocking them off balance and off her lap. She drops the receiver scrambling to pick them up and hears Benny’s tinny voice hollering her name.

“I’m okay,” she says out loud at the dangling receiver. “Dropped my stuff.”

She leaves the books stacked in the corner and stays crouched on the floor of the booth. The receiver’s cable, when she pulls it to her ear, is just long enough for her to hold right. 

“I’m here,” she says again. “You’re really coming?”

“Yes!” Benny says, excitement spilling from voice, traveling all the way to California to send a thrill down her her spine. “I’m making my way to you.”

“When?”

“Well, I’ve already paid Usnavi rent, so I’ll finish up the month. I’ve already got a job, your father made a few calls–”

“He did?”

“Yeah, surprised the hell out of me too. It’s just driving again, no dispatch, but hey, I’ve worked my way up before, and I can do it again.”

Nina smiles. “You’ll do it, Benny, I know you will.”

“Yeah.” There’s a rush of static as he huffs a breath down the line. “Haven’t got a place yet. You sure I can’t hide in your dorm room?”

Nina laughs. “For a week, maybe. But longer than that and the school gets antsy. Besides, I’ve got a roommate.”

“Well, I’ve been making a few calls and it’s a bit of a tough market out there, and besides, I was thinking…”

“Mmm?”

“Well, I was thinking I’d start looking for a place big enough for us both. And when your housing contract for the year’s over, you could...move in with me?”

She hesitates. “My dad’ll freak.”

“He...doesn’t need to know?”

Nina bites her lip. Living with Benny? She’d love too. And she lives off campus, maybe the grant money she’d earned back that’s covering her housing could be redirected to cover tuition instead. That said, it’ll be a big step. All they’ve had so far is a summer and a seven month old long-distance relationship.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

“No worries,” he says. “There’s still time. So, how’re classes going? That test go all right?”

They fall into the rhythm of their usual conversations, catching up on the ins and outs of their lives. Today however, Nina can’t care much about the latest barrio gossip. She’s thinking of Benny, and California, and Benny and California, Benny in California, finally seeing the smile on his face again instead of hearing on the phone, holding him and being held in his arms, the smooth baritone of his voice singing in her ear.

“Hey,” he says, and she realises she’s fallen silent over his dramatic retelling of...something. “Everything alright?”

She has to bring a hand to her face to wipe away tears. “Yeah,” she says, “I’m just happy.”

* * *

Benny arrives on a Tuesday, on a bus from San Francisco. Nina’s waiting at the Caltrain Station, keeping an eye out for the bus line he’d given her from a payphone at the airport. It’s eleven in the morning and the sun is already high in the sky, though there’s still a bit of a chill in the air.

When it arrives and comes to a halt, it feels like she’s watching a clown car of infinite students pour out onto the pavement, none of them Benny. There’s a little pit of anxiety curdling in her stomach. What if he’d decided against it after all? How could she have asked him to give up everything he knew just for her? 

“I can hear you thinking,” says a familiar voice behind her. Warm hands slide up her arms. “Breathe.”

“Benny. I didn’t see you get off.” 

“You were somewhere else, staring into the sky.”

She turns around and lets herself fall into his warm, strong arms. His hug enfolds her like she’d never left. “You’re here.”

He laughs and she can feel the verberations through his chest, the beating of his heart, against her ear. She breathes him in, Benny, sweaty, a bit ripe from his travels.

“How was your trip?”

Benny gives her a sheepish smile. “I threw up the first hour and slept through the rest of them.”

It’s her turn to laugh. “It happens to the best of us. Does that mean I shouldn’t kiss you?”

“No!” he cries in protest. “I did brush after, they had these tiny tubes of toothpaste–”

Nina doesn’t want to hear about those tiny tubes of toothpaste. Or of Benny’s first taste of airplane food. Benny knows that. She can feel him smile against her lips when she kisses him before her sweeps her up and pulls her closer and lets her know how much he missed her.

Someone cat calls. There’s a whistle. They break apart.

Benny’s hand slides down her arm to take one of hers. In his other picks up his battered suitcase. “Where to now?”

“Well, I’ve bribed my roommate,” Nina tells him. There’d been cookies. Lots of them. “If you’re good you can stay two weeks in our room. She’ll help hide you. And I’ve been looking for places. For the both of us.”

He smiles at her, that slow adoring smile that makes her feel like she can take on the world, that smile she’s missed seeing all these month, hearing it only in his voice over the phone, a smile could outshine any sunrise.

Something glistens in the corner of his eye and she laughs, licks her thumb and smudges away his tear.

“You alright?” she asks. 

“Yes,” he says, “I’m just happy.”

She holds his hand as they walk across campus. The sun is high in the sky, and it shines down upon this new home they’re making, warm and bright.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Had to keep reminding myself that they didn't have cellphones and couldn't just text each other.  
> Title from "Such Great Heights".


End file.
